In order to prepare an address calculated to be of general interest to my fellow archæologists, it is essential that it be composed of a variety of ingredients. Now, it so happens that the results I have been obtaining during the course of my investigations in the last few years not only embrace a large number of culture phases, but, when arranged in proper sequence, they form a consecutive narrative. Furthermore, the greater part of the researches I have undertaken relates to those periods in British prehistory concerning which we know least. I refer to the so-called ‘Upper Palæolithic’ and ‘Early Neolithic’ times.

It is not my intention to deal in this paper with those inter-glacial and cultural phases which antedate the formation of the Lower Purple Boulder Clay of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and the Lower Chalky Boulder Clay of East Anglia, though I would mention I have recently discovered in the glacial deposits of north-east Ireland specimens similar to those which have been found beneath the Cromer Forest Bed of Norfolk and in the Sub-Crag Detritus Bed of Norfolk and Suffolk. These specimens will be fully described and illustrated in our “Proceedings” at a later date.

The gravel-pit in which the implement was found in November, 1929, is known as the Bilford Pit, and is situated about a mile due east of the river Severn, in the Bilford Road, and a mile and a half due north from the centre of Worcester City. The surface level is 100 feet O.D., and the pit is owned and worked by the Worcester Corporation.

The area in the immediate vicinity of Worcester could not have been exempt from some of the effects of the abnormal climate that prevailed over the British Islands during the Ice Age, yet we have at present no clear evidence of an invasion of the district by ice-sheets. The drift deposits around Worcester comprise a great variety of pebbles, beds of sand, and a few boulders. The pebbles are similar to those obtained from the Permian and Bunter conglomerates, and the pebble-beds of the Lickey and Clent district (about sixteen miles to the north of Worcester). They include yellow, brown, and liver-coloured quartzites, vein quartz, sandstone, chert, limestone, slate and various igneous rocks.

The occurence of marine shells, Cretaceous flints, Liassic fossils, and other drift materials in the gravels extending from Cheshire to Gloucestershire, led Murchison to believe they were laid down by a marine current flowing from the north. Few geologists now accept this explanation.

Since my original paper on the flint implements found in the Brown Boulder Clay of north-west Norfolk, I have continued my researches in that region, and now wish to give some account of these, and of the further specimens which have been discovered in this most recent boulder clay of East Anglia. I would take this opportunity of thanking the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Fund for their kindness in supporting this research with a money grant, and so enabling me to continue my examination of an era of much interest and importance to prehistoric archæology. I am also very grateful to my friends, Mr. J. B. Calkin, Mr. Guy Maynard, and Mr. J. S. Fisher, for the valuable help they have given me in carrying out the investigation of the Brown Boulder Clay.

As is now widely known, this deposit, so far as Norfolk is concerned, is confined to the north-western portion of that county, and many years ago was examined and reported upon by the Geological Survey in two of their memoırs. The Brown Boulder Clay occurs approximately at sea-level at Hunstanton, while at Brancaster, as reported by Mr. Clement Reid, the deposit is exposed at low water upon the foreshore, underlying the ‘submerged forest’ which he saw there. At other places, such as Holkham brickfield, and the remarkable formation (probably a terminal moraine) in Hunstanton Park, the boulder clay rests at about 50 ft, above O.D.

The word ‘flint’ is applied as a designation of the tools in contradistinction to the tools and weapons of bone and ivory, and as an equivalent of the French ‘Silex.’ The materials from which the tools at La Madeleine are made are, in fact, chert, jasper, chalcedony, and, to a lesser extent, quartz.

The rock shelter of La Madeleine is situated at the base of lofty limestone cliffs, and the bone and ivory implements there have been well preserved.

The classification followed in the present paper will be that of Capitan and Peyrony, in which the Magdalenian culture is divided into three sections, designated Lower, Middle and Upper respectively.

There is little difference apparent to the eye in the flint tools of those three sections, and in consequence they have been classed in accordance with the character of the bone and ivory implements found in the same beds with them at La Madeleine.

The present paper is divided into three sections as follows:—

I. Observations on certain forms of Magdalenian tools.

II. Typical tools of the Lower, Middle and Upper Industries at La Madeleine.

III. The frequency distribution and dimensions of the flint tools of the industries at La Madeleine as a basis for comparison with Magdalenian industries elsewhere.

The Pin Hole Cave was the first of the five caves forming the Creswell Group, in which excavation work was undertaken by the Rev. Magens Mello in 1875, and where his first discoveries were made. Operations at that time were confined to a limited area at the entrance of the cave and were mainly superficial; subsequent excavations ignored the cave entirely, and consequently the important deposits contained there have remained intact. This is a fortunate circumstance, because the Pin Hole, by reason of its position in the cliff face, is the only cave of the group in which a stratified record of the whole sequence of Creswell cultures has been preserved. Had it been excavated in 1875 much important scientific evidence would inevitably have been missed which the systematic excavation of the cave by modern methods has revealed, thereby providing not only valuable information respecting climatic variations during the cave period, but also a type cave-section for Britain.

Two beds of cave-earth are present—an upper, red, cave-earth, 6 to 7 feet in thickness, sealed beneath either crystalline stalagmite or breccia; and a lower, yellow, cave-earth, 10 to 11 feet in thickness, the total average depth of the deposit being 17 feet to the bed rock of the cave. The upper cave-earth contains a series of typical Upper Palæolithic industries ranging from Upper Aurignacian and proto-Solutrean at its base, to a late Aurignacian culture at the top, corresponding in time to the Magdalenian of France.

The site forming the subject of this communication is an open-air station of Upper Palæolithic date, situated near the northern extremity of the Lincolnshire Cliff range, and previously unrecorded. The cultural horizon of the site closely corresponds with that of the upper levels of the rock-shelter known as ‘Mother Grundy's Parlour,’ Creswell Crags, Derbyshire, excavated by the writer in 1924, under the auspices of the British Association Research Committee for the Exploration of Caves in Derbyshire. Those excavations revealed, for the first time, the gradual development of our English phase of the Upper Aurignacian, and established the fact that this was of a distinctive character, and had been evolved practically free from Magdalenian influences. Excavations in the Mendip caves by the University of Bristol Spelæological Society, and elsewhere, have since confirmed these conclusions; and it is now recognised tlhat the culture is essentially an English expression of Upper Aurignacian, which is typical of the Upper Palæolithic in this country.

The chronology of the flint dagger which is the subject of the present paper has been discussed by R. A. Smith, who established the date of the type in the first phase of the Bronze Age, the period to which it had already been assigned by Montelius. A summary ot the list made by Mr. Smith is given in Appendix II below (p. 354-5); the few examples recorded with datable associations since 1919 bring the total up to 26.

Sir John Evans's description, adopted by Mr. Smith, gives the length and breadth of the type as varying generally between 5 and 7 ins. and 1½ to 2½ ins. respectively, although both larger and smaller examples occur. The blades are thin in proportion to their length, and lanceolate in outline, although in this respect there is a certain amount of variation. Both faces are flaked, and the working is generally of a very high character. In some cases major excrescences have been reduced by grinding.

Some typological development may be observed in the forms, although this cannot be compared with the elaborate evolution of the well-known Scandinavian series (below, p. 350). The changes take place in the butt. The earliest form typoiogically speaking, would seem to be a simple leaf-shaped blade, the widest part of which is approximately at the middle. There is no distinction between blade and tang or handle, and the latter is generally rounded off. Such daggers as the Green Low, Alsop Moor (Appendix I, no. 27, and fig. 1), and Acklam Wold (126) examples represent this form. It is not always easy to decide, however, whether other blades approximating to this shape represent a so-called prototype, and care has also to be taken to differentiate surface-found laurel-leaf blades of Solutrean age, although these are more usually pointed at both ends.

There are in Ipswich Museum some 18 beakers, more or less complete, together with fragments of at least four more. As these pots are all from a restricted area of south-east Suffolk, and have, with one exception, never before been described, I have undertaken, with the consent and help of the Secretary, to make a few observations upon them. With tine exception of a group from Brantham, and a single example from Wherstead, all the beakers were recovered loose ın gravel digging or cliff-falls. Near Brantham Hall, near the point where the Stour broadens out into its estuary, three beakers were found by Mr. G. Maynard together in the grave of a woman buried with a child; the pots were discovered near the flexed shin bones of the woman. Just south of this grave, was found another one containing a single beaker. Near these graves, which were discovered in gravel-digging, was a disc barrow, from the central part of which Mr. Maynard recovered 16 fragments of a single beaker, while from the trench, the late Mr. E. T. Lingwood succeeded in obtaining a fragment of a second beaker. Of the group from the woman's grave (Figs. 3, 4, 5, Pl. XXVIII.), Fig 3 has a smooth outline with an everted lip, is decorated over its whole area by seventeen horizontal lines coarsely incised, and has a maximum height of 4.9 inches; Fig. 4 is a crudely formed pot standing no more than 3½ inches high, poorly decorated with faint finger-nail impressions; Fig. 5, standing 6 inches high, is of fine paste with the smooth outline typical of Abercromby's type B, decorated with horizontal lines and linear chevrons arranged over the whole surface.

The skeleton described below was discovered recently in Southery Fen, Norfolk, by men employed in widening and deepening a drainage ditch. It was unfortunately removed before it could be seen in situ, but I was able by an examination of the ground not only to determine the exact level of the skeleton, but also to recover the lady's bronze pin or awl. She had lain on top of a layer of compressed sedges 2ins.-3ins. thick, which rested directly on undisturbed clay, and she was covered by 1ft. 9ins. of peat. The place where she was found was 28 yards away from one of the second type of Major Fowler's extinct waterways (“Old Run,” Plate XXXII.). There was no evidence of burial, and we conjecture that she had been drowned, carried down by this river, dropped among the sedges bordering it when the flood subsided, and subsequently covered by the growth of peat.

According to the workmen's account she was lying face downwards with one arm across her face and the other arm extended. The bracelet of jet beads (Plate XXXIII., a) is said to have been round the wrist of the extended arm; pin or awl (Plate XXXIII., b) must have been worn near the waist.

In 1922 Miss N. F. Layard gave as her presidential address an account of some prehistoric cooking-places, which she had discovered near a stream at Buckenham Tofts, Norfolk (Proc., P.S.E.A., Vol. III., Part IV.). One of the hearths excavated consisted of a triangular mass of calcined flints, up to two feet in depth, and covering an area of over 100 square yards. This was on one end of a mound rising about ten feet above the general level of the swamp bordering the stream. Amongst this material were found several flint implements, including knives typical of the Bronze Age. There were also found two sherds of pottery corresponding closely to a known Bronze Age type, though this also continued into the Early Iron Age.

Knowing nothing of Miss Layard's discoveries, in 1927 I came across similar deposits of pot-boilers, etc., at Hoe, near East Dereham. These are on either side of a small stream, which eventually runs into the River Wensum. Mr. Sainty and Mr. Newnham were good enough to come over and examine them, and Mr. Newnham subsequently gave a short account of them at the December meeting that year (Proc., P.S.E.A., Vol. V., Part III. page 311).

I was able to revisit the site in June this year (1931), and at one place where, however, there was hardly a mound at all, a layer of pot-boilers, 6 ins. deep, was found under about 6 ins. of turf and soil. Excavation of an area 12 feet by 8 feet produced nearly a pailful of pottery fragments, three dozen scrapers, and an implement of the bone-breaker type, besides numbers of flakes and cores.

In January, 1930, my brother started work on a garage on the west side of the Great North Road between Baldock and Stevenage, in the parish of Great Wymondley, and 180 yards south of the milestone indicating 34 miles to London. A hole in the chalk containing black soil and pottery was found in sinking a petrol tank.

It was a bowl-shaped pit (see Plate XXXV., Pit 1), showing in section on the chalk wall just dug, its greatest width being 8 ft., and the depth 5 ft. from the surface. Above the solid chalk was 2 ft. of soil, shading evenly from yellow at the base to dark yellow at the surface, and showing no variation or disturbance over the pit, as if the whole top-soil had been laid down after the pit had been filled in. I was fortunate in having Mr. T. C. Lethbridge, F.S.A., to help me clear this and the other pits, and on the first day we had the help and advice of Dr. Cyril Fox. F.S.A., and Mr. Louis Clarke, F.S.A.

By digging down from the surface we found that the pit was irregular in shape and extended 6 ½ ft. back from the chalk face. The filling was of dark soil varying in colour.

There were three layers which, from the quantity of wood ash in them, might have been hearths. In the filling were numerous brook pebbles cracked and blackened by fire (potboilers probably), and many potsherds.

This tumulus was first noticed by Mr. Sainty and myself in April, 1931, whilst on an expedition in search of implements of Cissbury type, of which we had found a considerable number in this locality. In appearance it did not seem to differ very much from the numerous mounds left bv warreners digging for rabbits, and, in fact, we had examined several such mounds showing almost the same elevation above the surrounding heath; but as this contained no rabbit workings and such parts as were not covered by gorse showed a thick covering of turf, it appeared interesting, and we marked it down for further examination at the next possible opportunity.

We were not able to visit the spot again till August 27th, when after a short time spent in searching for implements in the neighbouring field, we commenced digging, removing turf about five inches thick and opening a narrow trench. It was not long before we came across flakes, and threw out some 15 or 20, all showing signs of human workmanship, some with facetted bulbs of percussion, and finally a good chopper of Cissbury type.

As similar flakes had been found by us in the side of an old stone pit about 120 yards distant, we were very doubtful if it could be a tumulus after all, but decided to settle the matter by excavating till undisturbed earth was reached. At a depth of about three feet a tiny fragment of charcoal was turned up, so we at once enlarged the trench to allow for more careful working.

Since my paper on the Clactonian Industry at Swanscombe was read in 1929, I have obtained many more implements from Barnfield Pit (the one there described) and also a large collection from Rickson's Farm Pit.

The lower gravel at Rickson's Farm Pit has yielded the same culture as the lower gravel in Barnneld Pit, and it underlies a shell-bed containing I heodoxus cantianus (Ken. and B. B. Wood.), which is succeeded by a gravel containing well finished St. Acheul hand-axes in both places. The Acheulian tools from Rickson's Farm Pit differ somewhat from those obtained in Barnfield Pit in that there are fewer of the pear-shaped, pointed implements. The usual type in the former pit is thinner, more ovate, and frequently with a pronounced ‘twist’ of the reversed S kind.